


First Nightmares

by shieraseastar03



Series: ACOMAF [6]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Night Terrors, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 13:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19006600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieraseastar03/pseuds/shieraseastar03





	1. Shiera's nightmare

Rhysand awoke with a jolt, a sort of frenzy shooting through his veins like flying through wind in a storm built on emotions all clamoring over one another for supremacy until at long last cold, miserable agony claimed victory. It was worse than fear. It was terror. And it was precisely how Shiera was feeling in that exact moment.

 

Shiera.

 

He had woken up with a barely contained scream as he grabbed his chest, directly above his heart. The nightmare had been so vivid, almost as if it were a memory. His head was being held up by his hands as he struggled to catch his breath through the thick darkness that was clawing at his throat, threatening to choke anything in it's path. It only took a few minutes to recompose himself enough to feel the blinding pain and the crippling fear that was shooting down the bond.   
  


He leapt from bed leaving his sheets in a crumpled mess and taking just enough time to pull some sort of clothing over his legs to cover myself before he was shoving through the door to her room.

 

The scene that greeted him was nothing short of disastrous. The flickering visions she’d sent unwittingly through the bond of her nightmares while in the Spring Court were nothing compared to how Shiera looked now. The bed was burnt and shredded by the claws rippling from her hands, alight with flame that threatened to burn her alive in her bed. And the darkness. Oh the darkness. So cruel and thieving as it curled around her with the promise of decay. How it consumed her. Shiera must never have nightmared as such before in the Spring Court or else Tamlin would surely have done something… wouldn’t he?

 

Rhysand crawled atop the bed, forcing himself over her against her ceaseless thrashing and shook her, calling her name. Her shields were fully engaged blocking her mind from him and he had to search to find where he might slip through. 

 

The female he had come to love so much was all but withering in pain as the her darkness clawed at her throat, threatening to suffocate her. The dainty hands he had been holding just a few hours prior were now sprouting lethal talons that were tearing into the sheets. Rushing to the bed, Rhysand rushed to his love and tried to coax her awake.

 

“SHIERA” he screamed over and over, both aloud and into the recesses of her mind. A faint sliver appeared, the smallest trace of light beaming through almost as if she heard him, as if the bond were there.

 

Rhys pulled and Shiera’s body went utterly still. It scared me into oblivion until he realized that she was relaxing against my grip, not giving up or losing the fight.

 

“Open your eyes” he said firmly, holding her slick face in his hands and she obeyed, staring up at her with the face of panic and a million hopeless questions. “It was a dream” he said with a hard pant. He repeated it over and over, his mind racked with endless sadness that she had to experience this torment as he did night after night. He knew what these nightmares were and never would he wish them upon her. But she didn’t seem to really hear him, her eyes trailing up and down my exposed chest and taking in the tattoos inked into his skin now equally drenched as hers in sweat. “A dream… A dream…”.

 

Rhys knew it was coming before she did. The moment her eyes left him to take in the chaos that had erupted around her, that she had caused, he knew all too well from the countless nights she’d spent being ignored in the Spring Court how her body would react. As Shiera ran to the bathing room and retched into the toilet, Rhysand stepped cautiously into the room full of an intense longing to comfort her and an even greater fear that she wouldn’t let him.

 

But he would sure as hell try.

 

Her fingers hissed against the toilet, still trembling with fire and ash, too near her face as she vomited. Gently, with enough pressure to reassure her, Rhys pulled her long, soft hair back from her face. “Breathe” he said softly. “Imagine them winking out like candles, one by one”. 

 

Almost all at once and completely opposite to his suggestion that she take the flames on individually, Shiera heaved and intense light collided with the heat at her hands and all that was left in their place was darkness. But not the darkness from before that had threatened to cut her to the core of her being. This darkness was radiant, the darkness that soothed and comforted, erased the aches and pains, accepted the scars. His darkness.

 

“Well that’s one way to do it” he joked. She would never fail to surprise or impress him. But she was still silent. Too quiet. The purple rings under her eyes looked like a thin surface ready to give way to an endless hollow pit at any time. Beads of sweat rolled off of her in waves and her chest still shook with each shudder her stomach forced into her throat. 

 

If he was not so concerned for her mental state, Rhysand would be ecstatic that she was letting him help her. She had just began to open up more after she was rescued from the hell Amarantha put her in.   
  


After a few agonizing moments he dropped her hair and she settled against the cold wall of the bath, sweat still beading against her warm forehead. It took another few moments until she was able to collect her thoughts enough to speak.   
  
“How… How did you know?” she asked him weakly and he pointed to her tattooed hand.   
  


Rhysand didn’t have to read her mind to know how alone she had felt since Tarquin didn’t return from Under the Mountain. How it made Rhys’ stomach ache with fury. If Tarquin, her husband, the male that had loved her with all his heart…, if he could see how his wife was suffering… 

 

But it scared him, too, for how much that pain called to him, recognized him as its own. He loved his family here in the Night Court, but none of them, not even Alec, would ever understand as Shiera did how this felt.

  
  


“I have this dream” Rhys said, his voice thick, trying to reach her so he could shoulder her pain, “where it’s not me stuck under her, but Cassian or Azriel. And she’s pinned their wings to the bed with spikes, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. She’s commanded me to watch, and I have no choice but to see how I failed them”.

 

Still, Shiera kept silent, taking her time to flush the toilet and consider his words and he feared that perhaps he  had overstepped, that she was not ready or simply did not wish to hear any more of his story Under the Mountain. So he focused on the feel of her, willing what strength he could lend her into his grip on her skin, her hair.

 

“You never failed them” Shiera spoke, her voice a quiet rasp Rhys had to crane his ears to hear. A small stone atop a mound of similar pebbles that piled among one another building downward to larger rocks and boulders weighing in on his heart removed itself at those four simple words. But there were many stones and pebbles to go.

 

“I did… terrible things to ensure that” he confessed, his heart breaking.

 

“You did it for protecting your home, your Court… your family” she muttered, and turned. Her remorse forcing her back to the toilet, the same remorse Rhys felt every second of every day. So he dared a little further and offered a long soothing caress up and down the length of her back. He savored the touch when she didn’t turn away, when he realized it was the first open touch free of inhibitions and doubts that she had allowed between them.

 

“The flames?” she asked when the last of her stomach had heaved itself up. 

 

“Autumn Court”.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you sure that you are okay?” he asked her, knowing better not to mention the dream directly. She said nothing save for a nod of her head, so he took it as his que to leave, no matter how much he wished she would let him stay. He was only a few strides away from the door when he heard it. He never would have been able to hear the sound of her slight sniffle if not for his advanced hearing.   
  
The moment she thought he was out of the room is the same moment that she lost her composure. Tears came falling in waves, wishing that he was still there but not having the nerve to call him. Her thoughts were rapidly shooting down the bond without her knowledge and he was thankful that he had decided not to walk away from her.   
  
He approached her slowly and she lifted her her head, her eyes shining due to those tears filling them. “Please… Please… Don't… Don’t  leave me, Rhys”.

 

His heart stopped and kneeled before her. Founding  his courage he spoke softly, “Shiera… is it alright if I stay with you tonight?”.   
  
She found relief in her shattered heart and nodded, desperately.   
  
Shiera sat still for a very long time, unable to speak a single word. Never did his hands stop their comforting trek up and down her spine, a spine that he could feel so painfully through her too thin back. 

 

Never did Shiera stop him from doing so. Her eyes drifting back off to sleep, too weary to wrestle with words and simple thought, even then Rhys continued to touch her, to love her, wishing she knew how far that love was already burning for her.

 

And then he simply stared, sitting at her side too scared to move away lest she fall further down the pit without him there to watch over her. The funny thing was that even if she fell, he would be there to catch her because I was already deep within that pit myself. The real fear, Rhys knew, was that he wouldn’t be able to pull them back out.

 

But after he had kept watch long enough and Shiera had not stirred beyond the subtle rise and fall of her chest as she drew breathe, he supposed that he had gotten them out of the pit enough at least for tonight. 

  
A few minutes passed and he felt sleep begin to take over but was able to hear the woman in his arms sigh contently, move her back closer to his chest, and whisper, “Thank you, Rhys”.   
  
She felt Rhysand smile into her hair and mumble, “Of course, Shiera darling”.

 

Rhysand stroked his thumb along her cheek wondering when she’d next let him in so close as she had tonight without her usual reproach, if ever again she would, and left her to her dreams.

 


	2. Rhys' nightmare

Like the wood itself was being warped, the house began to moan and shudder, the colored glass lights in my room tinkling. Shiera jolted upright, twisting to the open window. Clear skies, nothing… Nothing but the darkness leaking into my room from the hall door.

 

Shiera knew that darkness. A kernel of it lived in her. It rushed in from the cracks of the door like a flood. The house shuddered again. She vaulted from bed, yanked the door open, and darkness swept past her on a phantom wind, full of stars and flapping wings and… pain.

 

So much pain, and despair, and guilt and fear.

 

She hurtled into the hall, utterly blind in the impenetrable dark. But there was a thread between them, and she followed it, to where she knew his room was. Shiera fumbled for the handle, then… More night and stars and wind poured out, her hair whipping around her, and she  lifted an arm to shield her face as she edged into the room.

 

“Rhys”.

 

No response. But she could feel him there, feel that lifeline between them. She followed it until her shins banged into what had to be his bed. “Rhys” she said over the wind and dark. The house shook, the floorboards clattering under my feet. I patted the bed, feeling sheets and blankets and down, and then… Then a hard, taut male body. But the bed was enormous, and she couldn’t get a grip on him. “Rhys!”.

 

Around and around the darkness swirled, the beginning and end of the world. She scrambled onto the bed, lunging for him, feeling what was his arm, then his stomach, then his shoulders. His skin was freezing as she gripped his shoulders and shouted his name.

 

No response, and she slid a hand up his neck, to his mouth, to make sure he was still breathing, that this wasn’t his power floating away from him… Icy breath hit my palm. And, bracing herself, she rose up on her knees, aiming blindly, and slapped him.

 

Her palm stung, but he didn’t move. She hit him again, pulling on that bond between them, shouting his name down it like it was a tunnel, banging on that wall of ebony adamant within his mind, roaring at it. A crack in the dark. And then his hands were on her, flipping her, pinning her with expert skill to the mattress, a taloned hand at her throat.

 

She went still. “Rhys” Shiera breathed. Rhys, she said through the bond, putting a hand against that inner shield. The dark shuddered. She threw her own power out, black to black, soothing his darkness, the rough edges, willing it to calm, to soften.

 

“It was a dream” she whispered. His hand was so cold. “It was a dream”. Again, the dark paused. She sent her own veils of night brushing up against it, running star-flecked hands down it. And for a heartbeat, the inky blackness cleared enough that she  saw his face above her: drawn, lips pale, violet eyes wide...scanning.

 

“Shiera” she said. “I’m Shiera”. His breathing was jagged, uneven. She gripped the wrist that held her throat, held, but didn’t hurt. “You were dreaming”. She willed that darkness inside herself to echo it, to sing those raging fears to sleep, to brush up against that ebony wall within his mind, gentle and soft…

 

Then, like snow shaken from a tree, his darkness fell away, taking mine with it. Moonlight poured in, and the sounds of the city.

 

His room was similar to hers, the bed so big it must have been built to accommodate wings, but all tastefully, comfortably appointed. And he was naked above her, utterly naked. But she managed to not dare look lower than the tattooed panes of his chest.

 

“Shiera” he said, his voice hoarse. As if he’d been screaming. “Yes” she let out. He studied her face, astounded, maybe frightened… and his taloned hand at her throat. He released her immediately, trembling. “Have… Have I hurt you?” he blurted, terrified. She held his gaze and managed to give him a relieved half smile before shaking her head.

 

She lay there, staring up at where he now knelt on the bed, rubbing his hands over his face. Her traitorous eyes indeed dared to look lower than his chest, but her attention snagged on the twin tattoos on each of his knees: a towering mountain crowned by three stars.

 

Beautiful… but brutal, somehow.

 

“You were having a nightmare” she tried again, easing into a sitting position. Like some dam had been cracked open inside her, she glanced at her hand, and willed it to vanish into shadow. It did. Half a thought scattered the darkness again.

 

His hands, however, still ended in long, black talons, and his feet... they ended in claws, too. The wings were out, slumped down behind him. And she wondered how close he’d been to fully shifting into that beast he’d once told herhe hated.

 

He lowered his hands, talons fading into fingers. “I’m sorry”. She shook her head again, trying to comfort him. “That’s why you’re staying here, not at the House. You don’t want the others seeing this” she guessed quietly and he nodded, slowly. “I normally keep it contained to my room. I’m sorry it woke you”.

 

She fisted her hands in her lap to keep from touching him. “How often does it happen?”.

Rhys’s violet eyes met her green ones, and she knew the answer before he said, “As often as you”. She swallowed hard. “What did you dream of tonight?”. He shook his head, looking toward the window, unable to look at her again. “There are memories from Under the Mountain, Shiera, that are best left unshared. Even with you”.

 

Shiera. He never called her by her name, only went thing were… He’d shared enough horrific things with her that they had to be... beyond nightmares.

  


She put a trembling hand on his elbow, naked body and all. “When you want to talk, let me know. I won’t tell the others”. He met her green gaze again, and was surprised to find so much truth in those glittering eyes. “Thank you” he whispered with all his heart. If only he could thank her for everything, every night of despair that she had saved him from...

 

A painting flashed into her mind when she studied the ravaged face. Such pain lingered there… and exhaustion. The face he never let anyone see. Rhys knelt, wings drooping across the white sheets, head bowed, his tattoos stark against his golden skin.

 

A dark, fallen prince.

 

The painting flashed, and stayed there, glimmering, before it faded. But it remained, shining faintly, in that hole inside her chest. The hole that was slowly starting to heal over.

 

She pushed up onto her knees and kissed his cheek, his skin warm and soft beneath her lips. He thought it would be over before it started, but, in contrast, it was a long, sweet and comforting kiss.

 

Her heart thundered, nervous before saying, “I think… I think that I owe you a night of comfort”. His heart stopped. She went on, her voice trembling. “You help me that night and I… I think I should return the favor. I can stay if you want”.

 

She didn’t know where the hell she had found the courage needed to  speak those words but there they were and now she was nervous of how he could react.

 

Rhysand blinked, unable to believe her offer. Sleep together? He might have awake form a nightmare but what she was offering seemed like the most wonderful dream he could even imagine. No, no… It couldn’t be true, it was to good for being true. She was only repaying what he had offered with all his heart. He couldn’t force her to stay if she didn’t really wanted, he… “It wasn’t a favor” he muttered, “You don’t have to return anything…”. His voice faded, unable to look her as she would clearly walk away, away from him.

 

She blinked. “If you don’t want me to stay…”. She made to slither off the bed, but he grabbed her hand, keeping it against his arm. “I… I want but…”, he swallowed hard, “only if you want”. A plea. And the sadness in his voice, it nearly broke her heart. Shiera stared at Rhysand, his eyes filled with an endless sadness, fear, guilt but somewhere, there… It was… Hope.

 

They stared at each other. It could have been a second but it felt like a lifetime. Their breaths mixing, their hearts thundering.

 

How often had she wished that Tarquin would comfort her, acknowledge her nightmares? How often had she wished she was not alone with her fears, her darkness?

How relieved she had been when Rhysand stayed with her, the whole night, until he was sure she would not have more nightmares that night?

Could she really leave Rhys here to suffer as she had in the Spring Court?

 

Shiera let out a sudden breath before lifting her other hand and taking Rhys hand between her own she sat on the bed, next to the broken High Lord. “I’ll stay” she breathed and he lowered his head, relieved, relieved beyond measure.   
  
  



End file.
